2012 Edmunds St. John Rocks and Gravel - USA, California (1/10/2014)I'm really not sure what to make of this wine right now. It's very good, but nothing like any vintage of Rocks & Gravel I have ever tried. There's a ton of up front fruit, but not in any jammy way. Then behind that there is more fruit. I'm not getting that herbal/earthy/stony complexity that I have gotten out of other young R&G vintages. It's just pure fruit. While I was drinking it I started thinking that if Clos Roche Blanche made a GSM blend it would be this wine. I'm going to keep my hands off of this wine for a year+ and see how it settles down. Overall judgement reserved - not because it was a poor wine (it's not at all!), but because it is so different from my expectations of the ESJ Rocks & Gravel.

Rocks and Gravel and Syrah are each just north of 200 cases per year. The Gamay is uneven because it's at such high elevation that we lose quite a lot, some years, to frost. Last few years it's been under 400 cases. Rosé has been around 400 cases. Heart of Gold only a couple hundred.

I don't know just how I'm supposed to play this scene, but I ain't afraid to learn...